so, i'm a couple days late, but thought i'd express my best wishes nonetheless. on September 21st, Belize turned 26! September is a big month for celebrations around here, beginning on the 10th, with St. George's Caye Day, commemorating the defeat of Spanish troops by the Baymen on St. George's Caye. the month is marked by parades, block parties, concerts, copious football (read soccer) games, and for some reason, beauty pageants galore. the latter seem to be a year-round form of entertainment here, as well as one of the country's preferred fundraising methods. football, beauty pageants and karaoke are the Belizean golden entertainment trifecta. who woulda thunk it?
Strong, Independent and Free
Belize Fi All Ah We!
Sunday, September 23, 2007
Saturday, September 15, 2007
some random shots
Rachel shines
lily pads on the New River
it's called craboo, and i haven't quite developed a taste for it yet...
palm shadows
the view from the back of Andy's car, on the road to Corozal for an afternoon at the bay
games in Lucky Strike
during training we helped the folks in Lucky Strike do crowd control during their final celebration field day. here are some shots of the day...
taking in the final results of the chalk art relay
Clare attempts to hold her ground in the face of a mob of children whose thoughts are bent only on getting to the water balloons in the bag she's holding
and this is what happens when they succeed...
Matt passing on the ever important hand slapping game
no explanation needed. just fun.
taking in the final results of the chalk art relay
Clare attempts to hold her ground in the face of a mob of children whose thoughts are bent only on getting to the water balloons in the bag she's holding
and this is what happens when they succeed...
Matt passing on the ever important hand slapping game
no explanation needed. just fun.
searching the picture archives
Clare enjoys her bag o' water. that's how they serve it 'round these parts...
Kyle, Ashli & Todd at everyone's favorite hangout spot in Belmopan. it's a cafe called Perk Up, and it comes complete with wireless internet, lots of frothy coffee drinks, salads smothered in balsamic vinegar, copies of Architectural Digest, bagels and air conditioning. heavenly!
Matt bushwacking a path so Rebecca could find a place to pee that wasn't in full view of the road
road sign announcing entrance into Carmelita, a village outside Orange Walk Town, where we ran some youth activities
Rebecca and i with our art class graduates at the Orange Walk library
it's a tiny little country
all during training people kept trying to drum into our heads that Belize is a small country, where everyone knows everyone else, and nobody's business is private. i'm sure we all understood that in theory, but i've only recently begun to really grasp the concept as it applies to my life for the next two years. here's an example...
one night in Belmopan a couple weeks ago... i was at a bar with my cousin and a couple other volunteers. we met a man named Michael, who lives way up north in Corozal. when Maya explained that she was living in Hopkins, he mentioned that he had family there. she said that indeed, she was sure she'd met him during her volunteer days in Hopkins 6 or so years ago. interesting enough on it's own.
fast forward three days... i went to Hopkins to visit Maya. we were walking down the village's main drag when what should pull up next to us but a suspiciously familiar Lincoln Town Car. it was Michael, who had decided to stop in Hopkins on his way to Belize's southern most district town, Punta Gorda. we exclaimed our surprise at seeing him. we chatted. we took our leave. later that day we were standing in the doorway of another volunteer's host family's house when Michael drove by again. seems that Bertie's host mom is his cousin. also interesting.
fast forward another two days... back in San Ignacio, i received a text message from Mitchell, a volunteer serving in a tiny village waaaaay down south. he said he'd heard i'd been in Hopkins over the weekend. how the heck did he know that? guess he must have run into Michael too...
i suppose that i shouldn't really be surprised by any of this. Belize is, after all, only the size of Massachusetts, with a total population of under 300,000. but i'm still having a hard time wrapping my brain around the concept that news of my activities can travel in a couple days time to a volunteer serving in a remote village half a country away from me. this is definitely going to take some getting used to.
one night in Belmopan a couple weeks ago... i was at a bar with my cousin and a couple other volunteers. we met a man named Michael, who lives way up north in Corozal. when Maya explained that she was living in Hopkins, he mentioned that he had family there. she said that indeed, she was sure she'd met him during her volunteer days in Hopkins 6 or so years ago. interesting enough on it's own.
fast forward three days... i went to Hopkins to visit Maya. we were walking down the village's main drag when what should pull up next to us but a suspiciously familiar Lincoln Town Car. it was Michael, who had decided to stop in Hopkins on his way to Belize's southern most district town, Punta Gorda. we exclaimed our surprise at seeing him. we chatted. we took our leave. later that day we were standing in the doorway of another volunteer's host family's house when Michael drove by again. seems that Bertie's host mom is his cousin. also interesting.
fast forward another two days... back in San Ignacio, i received a text message from Mitchell, a volunteer serving in a tiny village waaaaay down south. he said he'd heard i'd been in Hopkins over the weekend. how the heck did he know that? guess he must have run into Michael too...
i suppose that i shouldn't really be surprised by any of this. Belize is, after all, only the size of Massachusetts, with a total population of under 300,000. but i'm still having a hard time wrapping my brain around the concept that news of my activities can travel in a couple days time to a volunteer serving in a remote village half a country away from me. this is definitely going to take some getting used to.
Felix, a cousin, and a pile of textbooks
it's been over three weeks since my last post, and i'm not entirely sure how that happened. in that time i lost my camera, consolidated in Belmopan a second time to wait out yet another hurricane, reunited with my cousin and spent a lazy weekend with her in her Belizean hometown of Hopkins, spent countless hours stamping primary school textbooks, co-facilitated my first HFLE workshop and came to an understanding of just how small this country really is.
Hurricane Felix was initially projected to make landfall smack in the middle of Belize, as a Category 5. luckily for us (though not for Honduras) he changed his mind and his trajectory at the last minute. we spent another soggy night in Belmopan, suffering only 10 minutes or so of strong winds. the upside of this latest trip to Belize's capital was that i got to spend some quality lockdown time with my cousin Maya, who had arrived in Belize just two days earlier and was looking for a safe place to wait out Felix.
the following weekend i took the bus to visit her in Hopkins, where she served as a Peace Corps Volunteer (1999-2001) and is now conducting research for her dissertation on language transmission as it relates specifically to the Garifuna people. she showed me around the village, a majority Garifuna community of roughly 1700 residents, located on the Caribbean shore just south of Dangriga. (the Garifuna are descended from West African slaves who migrated to Belize and Honduras from St. Lucia in the Caribbean. their numbers are relatively small, and fewer and fewer of their children are learning to speak Garifuna. but there has been a recent call to revive the teaching of the language, and they're even now printing Garifuna-English dictionaries.) Hopkins is a pretty sleepy beach community, though the resort industry has taken hold over the past several years, and is on its way to doubling the human population of the area. it's been six years since she completed her service, but everyone in Hopkins still greets Maya by name. she introduced me around town, and we got our kicks off the eyebrows that are inevitably raised when we assure people that we Ravindranaths and MacKays are indeed related by blood.
back in San Ignacio, i spent the majority of my first full week at work helping to prepare textbooks for distribution to all the primary schools in the Cayo district. until this year, individual schools had the responsibility of deciding which textbooks to use, and parents would buy copies for their children's use. this year the Belizean government decided to standardize all primary school texts and provide them free of cost. it's an enormous logistical undertaking. with the start of school delayed by a week due to Felix, district education centers around the country were still scrambling to get books to all the schools by the start of classes. hasn't quite happened yet...
Hurricane Felix was initially projected to make landfall smack in the middle of Belize, as a Category 5. luckily for us (though not for Honduras) he changed his mind and his trajectory at the last minute. we spent another soggy night in Belmopan, suffering only 10 minutes or so of strong winds. the upside of this latest trip to Belize's capital was that i got to spend some quality lockdown time with my cousin Maya, who had arrived in Belize just two days earlier and was looking for a safe place to wait out Felix.
the following weekend i took the bus to visit her in Hopkins, where she served as a Peace Corps Volunteer (1999-2001) and is now conducting research for her dissertation on language transmission as it relates specifically to the Garifuna people. she showed me around the village, a majority Garifuna community of roughly 1700 residents, located on the Caribbean shore just south of Dangriga. (the Garifuna are descended from West African slaves who migrated to Belize and Honduras from St. Lucia in the Caribbean. their numbers are relatively small, and fewer and fewer of their children are learning to speak Garifuna. but there has been a recent call to revive the teaching of the language, and they're even now printing Garifuna-English dictionaries.) Hopkins is a pretty sleepy beach community, though the resort industry has taken hold over the past several years, and is on its way to doubling the human population of the area. it's been six years since she completed her service, but everyone in Hopkins still greets Maya by name. she introduced me around town, and we got our kicks off the eyebrows that are inevitably raised when we assure people that we Ravindranaths and MacKays are indeed related by blood.
back in San Ignacio, i spent the majority of my first full week at work helping to prepare textbooks for distribution to all the primary schools in the Cayo district. until this year, individual schools had the responsibility of deciding which textbooks to use, and parents would buy copies for their children's use. this year the Belizean government decided to standardize all primary school texts and provide them free of cost. it's an enormous logistical undertaking. with the start of school delayed by a week due to Felix, district education centers around the country were still scrambling to get books to all the schools by the start of classes. hasn't quite happened yet...
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